transgender

International Day of Transgender Visibility was started just last year as a much-needed counterpart to the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which focused more on memorializing those lost rather than celebrating everything the trans community is doing today. Ironically, a recent controversy over the Tribeca Film Festival features problematic representations of trans women, and the ensuing discussion only further marginalized the trans community. And it all started with a little cis-directed flick called Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives. Yeah, you read that right.

Just when you though you might not want another reality show about making it big in the fashion world, along comes Boss Ladies. Billed as "an exciting hybrid of 'The Real Housewives' and 'Project Runway'" (yay?) viewers follow five transgendered women from Atlanta to Los Angeles as they try to launch a clothing line and open a boutique.

As you may know already, Amanda Simpson is the first openly transgendered Presidential appointee; Obama selected her as Senior Technical Adviser at the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security. Unfortunately, this historical moment is nothing but cheap laughs on late-night television.
Transcript and more after jump...

Original Plumbing, a new magazine published and distributed out of San Francisco, is a fresh new publication dedicated to FTM sexuality and culture. Made for trans men by trans men, its first issue ("The Bedroom Issue") came out in October and features voices from five rooms and a couple different continents, with content ranging from interviews to fiction to a detailed summary of how Germany's health care system helps transitioning. They're off to a great start, and I asked editor-in-chief/photographer Amos Mac and assistant editor Rocco Kayiatos (who raps as Katastrophe) a few questions about future plans for ORIGINAL PLUMBING.

It wasn't until moving to India that I realized just how much I'd been taking toilets for granted, and it wasn't until coming across the newly published Ladies and Gents: Public Toilets and Gender that I realized the extent of what I'd been missing. So, naturally, I decided it was time to dive head first into the loo… metaphorically, of course.

After interviewing Olga Gershenson and Barbara Penner, the authors of the book, I needed some visual to accompany my article—no small feat for a piece on toilets—so I turned to Google to see what was available in the way of tasteful toilet art. Instead I found gender reification and male sexual anxiety.